The Dragon Queens (The Mystique Trilogy) (11 page)

The stairs, constructed from huge stone blocks, led deep underground; where they plateaued stood a large arched entrance. Expertly chiselled into the stone were ancient glyphs that I could not read. However, by tracing my finger over the inscription, I was able to discern the psychic imprint of the scribe who had originally recorded the message in the stone. I spoke the translation aloud: ‘
Let no man enter this Court who has not prepared himself to appease the great scribe and his mistress, she who holds the divine key. In the Halls of Amenti, the righteous will earn the blessing to bask in the sweet vitality of the
sacred flower. The unrighteous will never leave this Court.
’

‘You have many hidden talents, Lady Devere,’ Mr Taylor commented, surprised that I seemed to share my son’s aptitude for deciphering ancient languages.

I sidestepped his curiosity. ‘Oh, I have picked up a thing or two in my travels.’

‘This warning does not sound very promising for the likes of me,’ Taylor joked. ‘You two may fare better.’

‘The question is, how did Levi fare?’ Lord Devere raised his torch and moved on through the archway.

The immensity of the next chamber took my breath away—the light of three flaming torches did nothing to fill the huge edifice. The stone walls tapered upwards to a central flattened ceiling that was the same width and length as the walkway ahead of us. Six massive stone columns on each side of the thoroughfare supported the great stone blocks of the ceiling.

‘How the hell did they erect this?’ Taylor shook his head, stumped, just as scholars had been doing for ages regarding just about every ancient structure known to man.

‘Perhaps levitation was big in ancient Mesopotamia?’ I suggested.

Mr Taylor assumed I was joking and gave a laugh; Lord Devere knew I was quite serious.

On the inside of the huge columns, facing the walkway, were carved images of six goddesses. On the opposing side of the columns, facing the outer stone walls, were carved the likenesses of the corresponding six gods.

‘The goddesses facing inward would seem to indicate that this shrine was tended and watched
over by females,’ I noted out loud. ‘I am guessing that this was a Court of the Dragon Queens—the Princesses and Priestesses of Ur who studied the teachings that the scribe, Thoth, allegedly inscribed on fifteen emerald tablets. The scribe was the servant of the great mother, known as Ninharsag or Hathor, and she in turn protected Thoth and guided him towards enlightenment.’

‘Okay.’ Mr Taylor raised both brows, open to run with my theory as he obviously had little knowledge of the treasures and texts he was digging from the ground.

I could not see what was at the end of the walkway, but to the side of the pillars, along the outer walls that the gods faced, we discovered a wide stone canal that appeared to have been bricked up on both sides, and most likely at the far ends as well.

‘I imagine they were water canals once,’ Taylor commented.

‘It is said that the ancient city of Ur was entirely surrounded by a huge moat, which fed canals that ran through the great ziggurat and its splendid outlying city,’ I said. ‘So your theory is highly likely.’

We made our way cautiously along the walkway towards the darkness at the far end. Beyond the pillars arose a huge statue of stone—a sculpture of a woman’s torso, with the head of a bull, and between the great arced horns on her head was a sun disk.

Taylor smiled as we admired the massive centrepiece that encompassed nearly the entire end wall of the structure. ‘Even I recognise which goddess this sculpture personifies.’ He looked to me, impressed by my earlier commentary. ‘I now see why Lord Malory sent you here, my lady.’

Suddenly a light appeared ahead and we all stopped in our tracks.

‘Levi?’ I called.

The open flame, which appeared to be a torch, began waving back and forth. I sensed movement behind me and turned to see Lord Devere waving his torch about.

‘A reflection,’ I realised.

Taylor peered at the reflection, which was still some way off. ‘The flame in the mirror seems somewhat richer in colour,’ he said. He approached the mirrored surface expectantly, and when his torch illuminated its material we all gasped. ‘Gold,’ Mr Taylor said, stunned. The gold formed two doors on the massive statue of Hathor, where the goddess’s womb was located. Before Mr Taylor could reach out to touch them, the doors retracted into the walls. Flabbergasted, he stopped dead in his tracks. ‘Impossible!’

‘Not impossible,’ Lord Devere corrected. ‘There are reports of such doors in a temple in ancient Alexandria. The deception was based on a trigger under the floor that set a counterweight into motion, causing the doors to part.’

My husband walked over to where Taylor stood and pointed to the floor. ‘What did I tell you?’

In his hurry to get to the golden doors, Taylor had inadvertently stepped onto a long timber strip of flooring that continued beyond the entry to the next chamber.

‘Once you step off the trigger, the doors will close behind you.’ Lord Devere moved forward again. ‘You scare far too easily, my friend.’

As we passed through the arched doorway into the womb of Hathor, the chamber within lit up
around us, the walls comprised of what appeared to be solid gold tablets. These huge rectangular blocks varied in width and were positioned to form semicircles on both sides of the circular room.

Out of curiosity I counted the tablets. ‘Fifteen,’ I said.

‘They are not emerald, though,’ Lord Devere stated the obvious, ‘so they are clearly not the Emerald Tablets of Thoth.’

‘But they could be very lovely copies,’ I suggested. ‘Thoth did travel extensively and probably recorded his insights wherever he went.’

In the centre of the room was a raised round pool of liquid. When ignited, it lit the entire chamber. The strange thing was, at the moment of illumination I heard a sound like that of a large group of people drawing a long, well-needed breath.

‘Oh my Goddess!’ Taylor’s eyes watered with joy at the sight of all the gold tablets, each one meticulously engraved with blocks of ancient text. ‘This is beyond all—’

‘Shh!’ Both Lord Devere and myself ordered him to silence.

‘You hear it?’ my lord asked me.

‘I do.’ I looked to each of the tablets in turn.

‘Hear what?’ Taylor whispered.

‘Either these tablets have a telepathic projection capability, or there is some sort of conscious intelligence connected with each.’

Lord Devere moved forward to address each tablet in turn.

‘Do you mean to tell me that the tablets are speaking?’ Mr Taylor clearly wanted to scoff, but was too polite. ‘What are they saying?’

‘They are reciting the text engraved on them,’ I explained. I gestured to the tablet nearest me. ‘This one is called the Key of Wisdom, and this one,’ I pointed to the one alongside it, ‘is a discourse on the Space Born.’

‘This is the Key of Time,’ Lord Devere advised of the tablet he was currently concentrating upon.

It seemed that the simple awarding of one’s attention was the key to activating the discourse of each tablet, although, as Mr Taylor was incapable of hearing anything, it was clear that one needed a certain amount of psychic aptitude to make the telepathic connection. I discovered that if I skimmed my attention further down the tablet, the discourse would skip forward and resume its tutorial from wherever had captured my interest. Even more astounding was that the discourse was in English, but if I willed it to be Latin or Italian or any of the other languages I was familiar with, then the tutorial adjusted to suit that desire. This suggested the tablets had some sort of intellect, but whether it was human or artificial I could not say without further investigation.

‘What an incredible feat of psychic ingenuity,’ I uttered, in awe of the creator. Did I dare to touch one of the tablets and discover who that creator was?

‘Wait!’ Mr Taylor frowned as he listened harder. ‘I do hear something. It sounds like…a woman, moaning.’

I stopped short of touching the tablet and dragged my attention from the text—sure enough, I heard the moaning too.

‘It is coming from over there.’ Taylor pointed to an archway that led further into the ruin.
Reluctantly, Lord Devere and I turned away from the tablets; there would be plenty of time to study them later.

Through the archway was another huge chamber. Lord Devere paused at the arch to note a cavity within the framework that was filled with gold. ‘Another set of doors,’ he guessed, ‘which were opened by an advance party.’

‘Levi?’ I voiced what we were both wondering.

‘Just look at this!’ Mr Taylor was turning circles as he walked further into the chamber, which was also round. The shape of the shrine seemed to indicate that this temple had never been part of the ziggurat above, but had originally been structured as a secret subterranean dwelling. Huge pillars supported the ceiling, which featured an enormous downward-facing lotus flower crafted entirely from gold. The flower’s petals opened high above a raised central platform in the centre of the temple. Atop the platform stairs stood a circular altar block, crafted from silver. ‘This find is unprecedented!’ Taylor cried.

I noted that the floor beneath my feet did not sound like stone or timber and crouched to view the shiny, smooth surface. ‘Red-gold,’ I said to my husband.

We had both seen this rare metal before, in the Sinai, and it meant only one thing: those who had built this temple knew the ancient alchemic art of Star-Fire production.

Star-Fire, besides its use for accelerating the spiritual enlightenment of those who carried the Gene of Isis, was also used to reinforce precious metals with extraordinary strength and weight, once the metal had returned to a cool and hardened state.

But when these resilient metals were heated to extreme temperatures, their superconductivity caused them to levitate and sometimes even dissipate altogether.

‘Good luck trying to strip this temple bare of its treasures,’ my husband muttered to me.

Mr Taylor had not noted our observations; he was still turning circles, admiring the gold ceiling feature.

I noticed something on the silver altar and pushed past Taylor.

His torchlight illuminated the silver stone and I could see that some dark liquid had tarnished the sides and run all the way down the steps.

‘It is blood,’ I said upon touching it and raising my fingers to the light. ‘And it is still moist.’

I clambered up the steep stairs expecting to find our son, but it was the body of a woman lying on the great silver block of offering and both her wrists were cut. I brushed the hair from her face. ‘Miss Koriche!’

My fingers searched her neck for a pulse. ‘She is still alive,’ I called to the others. It was a miracle considering the amount of blood she had shed, and I began ripping my head scarf into strips to bandage her wounds.

‘My God!’ Taylor was shocked to find his linguist in such a state. Then, noting the seductive, sheer white silk dress Miss Koriche was wearing, he added, ‘It is always the quiet ones that surprise you.’

‘No…’ Miss Koriche, semiconscious now, made a weak protest against my first aid. ‘I am not worthy…’

‘What has happened here?’ I shook her a little to see if I could bring her to full consciousness. ‘Where is everyone? Where is Levi?’

‘Gone…’ she muttered.

‘Gone where?’ I urged, raising her body to rest against me.

‘They came for him…’

‘Who did?’ I stroked her face in the hope of keeping her with us, but her form became a dead weight in my arms.

‘Let us get her back to the surface,’ Lord Devere suggested, as calmly as his anxiety would allow. ‘And pray that she lives.’

He bundled the girl up in his arms and we made haste back towards the staircase.

‘Are you coming, Mr Taylor?’ I asked, noticing that our host seemed unable to drag himself away from assessing the potential profit of this find, despite his dying colleague.

‘Right behind you,’ he said, his gaze lingering on the huge golden lotus overhead.

Miss Koriche was in a very bad way: pale, cold and still unconscious.

‘All you have to do is touch her and we could know what happened,’ my husband tempted me. Mr Taylor had left us alone with the patient, claiming he had to take care of some urgent correspondence.

It was a real moral dilemma; I detested invading the private thoughts of others, although in this case I did have good cause.

‘If she dies, her knowledge will die with her,’ Lord Devere pushed. It was unlike him to encourage the abuse of my talents.

‘Her ghost may choose to converse with me,’ I said, knowing it was a weak argument.

‘And it may not.’ He politely demolished my protest. ‘What makes you think that Miss Koriche
would trust you any more in death than she did in life? For that matter, even if she wakes, she may not choose to tell us anything.’

I caved in. ‘All right, I shall do it…for Levi’s sake.’

‘You do not have to justify this course of action to me,’ Lord Devere pointed out, smiling. I knew he was grateful for my decision.

I placed a hand upon Miss Koriche’s and focused my inner eye to connect with her subconscious. I posed the question:
Do you know what has happened to Levi?

A string of images and sounds flashed before me in reverse, then came to a standstill. I was—or rather Miss Koriche was—in the tworoomed dwelling that stood above our discovery, speaking with Levi. It appeared to be the first day of our arrival at the Mound of Pitch, as the serious excavation of the second room had yet to begin…

Levi had remained with Miss Koriche after our party had left to inspect the rest of the excavation. He said he wanted to discuss the finer points of the ancient Sumerian language with her.

Miss Koriche was explaining the symbols on her rubbing when Levi interrupted her.

‘You can stop pretending now that we are alone,’ he said.

‘I am not entirely sure what you mean, Mr Granville-Devere.’ I felt her smile, sparked by curiosity.

Levi returned her smile with a very charming one of his own. ‘I mean that I was expecting to meet you here in Persia. Were you expecting me? I thought I
detected a hint of recognition when we were introduced—was I wrong about that?’